Discovering my potential through rebooting

Dantes

Active Member
Thanks for the support Chris Oz!

Day 55

I'm very happy to say that relaxing yesterday evening allowed me to have a great sleep and henceforth this day was quite nice. I felt energetic the whole day at work and felt good exercising in the evening. Now I'll try to repeat the same steps today to improve sleep yet again. It still feels like the days are passing bby very rapidly and I'm not able to practice and study all the things that I want. This probably requires some prioritization of my current goals. But perhaps more on that later, now it's time to wind down from another active day towards good night's rest.

See you tomorrow
Dantes
 

Dantes

Active Member
Day 56

Had a wet dream last night, speaks a lot about porn addiction that in this this dream I was watching porn rather than doing something else sexual. I never considered wet dreams relapses since there is not much you could do to avoid them. I remember from reading Soaring Eagle's texts that there are some techniques to avoid them, but as I tend to have them quite infrequently, I'm not yet too worried. Days fly by in the work, I feel I've sort of plateaued in my ambitions to study and learn new stuff. That is one of my goals short-term, to restart that fire. Or rather, just to get myself going again and work towards my goals.

See you tomorrow
Dantes
 

Dantes

Active Member
Day 57

Pretty exhausting day again. Full day of work and straight to tennis court for 2,5 hours did it for me today. Pretty tired and looking forward to going to bed. Tomorrow gf will come back for a week before leaving for summer. So first two weeks of rebooting while living on my own just went down, and not too many difficulties after the initial urges went away.

See you tomorrow
Dantes
 

Dantes

Active Member
Day 58

Feeling pretty good right now. After leaving work I had the first friday-feeling for the longest time, mostly because I haven't worked full weeks for a while. Somehow feeling pretty optimistic about my relationship with gf suddenly. So definitely some mood swings noticeable since beginning the reboot. But what goes up, usually comes down. And I must be ready for the downswing when that happens.

Just read the Zander reboot thread and I feel that it somehow changed my perspective on my reboot. Mainly just confirming to myself that I want to stay away from porn forever. The first goal still lies ahead in 90 days, and we are soon two thirds the way there. Let's keep going.

See you tomorrow
Dantes
 

Dantes

Active Member
Day 59

What a weird day. Yesterday was a pretty good night with my gf, had sex and it really felt better than it has for a really long time. Today I woke up after pretty short sleep, which was expected since we stayed up late watching tv. After morning exercise, I went to visit facebook and read news. In facebook I ended up looking up a really beautiful and nice girl from my work, and this then turned into a goddamn ogle-fest. I suspect it was the combination of short sleep, listening to my favourite music again after a long time, the high-sugar foods I ate with morning coffee and maybe the sex yesterday but I became hyper-energetic for the day. I skimmed through the photos of this girl and returned to do it again for like two times. A positive note may be that I didn't even consider MOing and didn't have erotic thoughts, I really just thought that she was really beautiful and felt maybe a bit of crush, perhaps having something to do with my struggle with my gf for a some while now and this girl seems different than her in all the right ways.

Either way, in the midst of it all, there was still a profound disappointment and disgust within myself toward my action. To complicate the interpretation of the situation, this was also my most productive day for a while. So maybe there is something good in this, as it seems I managed to harness some of that energy on meaningful things. Maybe rebooting has loaded my energy storages and now upon the first less-disciplined day they are trying to find a way out.

At the end of the day it seems that some sort of energy and mood swings appear to be a part of my reboot process. So constant vigilance is still required to succeed in the next thirty days.

See you tomorrow
Dantes
 

Dantes

Active Member
Day 60 & 61

I missed the big day! So yesterday I spend the morning with my gf and then went to play tennis and worked out. My saturday-sunday sleep was very poor due to staying up watching eurovision finals. This coupled with sauna after workout made me pass out in the sofa before my gf came home and I woke up stunned and headed straight back to bed. So that's the benign and slightly amusing story behind my missed day of posting.

Probably due to long sleep last night, today was pretty nice day. At work things flowed onwards quite well and even managed to do some work on my other projects after work. Last weekend I viewed quite a lot of triggering material in forms of music videos and instagram posts and spend more time on things bringing instant gratification such as instagram, youtube, music etc. This is something I'll work on getting a bit more strict on this week. Today I've also started to feel the lack of feelings towards my gf, but I'll try to be patient with that sensation.

See you tomorrow
Dantes
 

Dantes

Active Member
Day 62

Posting a bit earlier today. Nothing special happening, work went well and played tennis right afterwards. I can feel some urges time to time but for now they seem to keep themselves in bay. So keeping it short today. I haven't posted anything self-improvement related in a while and I think it could be good to do that sometime this week. First and foremost that would re-center my own focus on my daily system.

See you tomorrow
Dantes
 

Dantes

Active Member
Days 63 & 64

So slipped yesterday and almost today in terms of journaling, but these two days have both been filled with work and sports, not much to add. Gf leaving for work in another city after next weekend so living alone again is the next challenge in rebooting I'm gearing up for.

See you tomorrow
Dantes
 
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Dantes

Active Member
Day 65

Busy day again today. Not much to report. Maybe tomorrow or sunday I have some more to write. Spending time with gf and as told in previous post, after this weekend the real challenge starts again.

See you tomorrow
Dantes
 

Dantes

Active Member
Day 66

Super tired after busy day, no energy to write anything besides checking up in here.

See you tomorrow
Dantes
 

Dantes

Active Member
Day 67

I feel like writing something, but mind is feeling quite empty right now.

So girlfriend just left for the next two months, she's working elsewhere this summer. This poses another level of difficulty, as I'm entering hard mode of rebooting after two months of reboot behind me. We'll still see each other over few weekend in summer, but whether we have time for sex remains to be seen. So all of that practice with journalling and my system will now be measured against hard mode rebooting. I'm happy with what I've achieved in last two months, but currently I'm not yet very confident in my ability to defend the urges. The first initial urges appeared when my gf left, and I almost gave in. My mind was trying to convince me that PMOing now won't matter, because who cares if I get PIED for a while, I won't be having sex for a while anyway. Managed to get over that obstacle however, now the priority is once again in kicking my system into gear, ensuring quality sleep and exercise each day and developing myself and my projects daily. It'll take some practice to take care of all the housework and food besides the aforementioned stuff, but it's all about incremental improvements and establishing routines that fit neatly together.

I also want to use this time alone as an opportunity to reflect the past spring and my life from now on. I have been struggling with lack of feelings towards my gf for approximately half a year now. We've been together for 2,5 years. It has been quite typical for me in my earlier life to embody this "new beginnings" mindset during springtime, for some reason. And I really want to make sure what I'm feeling isn't just product of that mindset, which has now been taken into new heights as I've graduated and have properly started to plan the direction of my life for the next few years. Everything is currently functioning very well in our everyday life and it feels like a huge waste to just throw it away, but in the other hand I spend a lot of my time just daydreaming about someone else and I feel very frequently frustrated with my gf. I can't feel the companionship with her that she seems to be feeling with me, I sort of just play along with her so as not to cause trouble. I do care for her but at this point I'm quite unsure if I love her. To be frank, I'm not even sure if I know how love really feels or if I would recognize feeling it. I don't mean that I don't have emotions, I think of myself as being more emotional than average guy. But, I'm also one of the most independent people I know. I have done some travelling alone, I frequently need time alone with my own thoughts and I enjoy doing things just by myself. This is something I must overcome to make progress in my career as I often want to oversee and do everything from the ground up. This trait will lead me to micromanaging projects if I can't let it go. But what I originally meant to say with me being very independent is that I'm not sure if I'll ever be cabale of being co-dependent (thank you 7 habits of highly effective people) on a girl. So is that to say I can't love? It is a possibility I'm thinking. These are among the many qualities I've inherited from my father. He also seems often times frustrated and cynical about my mother and I can't help wondering, if the world and situation would've been different for him, would he have chosen a different companion. I love my father even after all the anger I felt towards him in my teenage years, because he raised me to have high moral standards and I'm proud of what he made me become, and even several years of porn addiction can't take that away. But nevertheless, that sort of question on companionship I will never dare to ask him.

I don't expect anyone else to solve this problem and that's the hard part, the decision of whether or not to commit into this particular relationship is mine and mine alone. There will be uncertainty for whatever decision I end up with, and I sort of have to turn a blind eye to that uncertainty when I decide on this. It does feel good to let go some steam on one the most personal questions in my life even anonymously, but a lot of work still remains to be done. I also want to see simply what spending the summer separately does to us. It may sound weird that it would bring us closer to each other, but if my hypothesis, that letting "new beginnings" mentality pass will make things better in the start of fall, it's one argument for it.

So once again proving that just getting started is often times the hard part. I started with an empty mind and then poured a wall of text onto this post when I just started to process the things on my mind now. I understand that this is probably not very useful thing for others to read and doesn't have that much to do with PMO but hey, my thread my rules (to certain extend), I suppose.

See you tomorrow
Dantes
 

Redalc

Active Member
Day 67

I feel like writing something, but mind is feeling quite empty right now.

So girlfriend just left for the next two months, she's working elsewhere this summer. This poses another level of difficulty, as I'm entering hard mode of rebooting after two months of reboot behind me. We'll still see each other over few weekend in summer, but whether we have time for sex remains to be seen. So all of that practice with journalling and my system will now be measured against hard mode rebooting. I'm happy with what I've achieved in last two months, but currently I'm not yet very confident in my ability to defend the urges. The first initial urges appeared when my gf left, and I almost gave in. My mind was trying to convince me that PMOing now won't matter, because who cares if I get PIED for a while, I won't be having sex for a while anyway. Managed to get over that obstacle however, now the priority is once again in kicking my system into gear, ensuring quality sleep and exercise each day and developing myself and my projects daily. It'll take some practice to take care of all the housework and food besides the aforementioned stuff, but it's all about incremental improvements and establishing routines that fit neatly together.

I also want to use this time alone as an opportunity to reflect the past spring and my life from now on. I have been struggling with lack of feelings towards my gf for approximately half a year now. We've been together for 2,5 years. It has been quite typical for me in my earlier life to embody this "new beginnings" mindset during springtime, for some reason. And I really want to make sure what I'm feeling isn't just product of that mindset, which has now been taken into new heights as I've graduated and have properly started to plan the direction of my life for the next few years. Everything is currently functioning very well in our everyday life and it feels like a huge waste to just throw it away, but in the other hand I spend a lot of my time just daydreaming about someone else and I feel very frequently frustrated with my gf. I can't feel the companionship with her that she seems to be feeling with me, I sort of just play along with her so as not to cause trouble. I do care for her but at this point I'm quite unsure if I love her. To be frank, I'm not even sure if I know how love really feels or if I would recognize feeling it. I don't mean that I don't have emotions, I think of myself as being more emotional than average guy. But, I'm also one of the most independent people I know. I have done some travelling alone, I frequently need time alone with my own thoughts and I enjoy doing things just by myself. This is something I must overcome to make progress in my career as I often want to oversee and do everything from the ground up. This trait will lead me to micromanaging projects if I can't let it go. But what I originally meant to say with me being very independent is that I'm not sure if I'll ever be cabale of being co-dependent (thank you 7 habits of highly effective people) on a girl. So is that to say I can't love? It is a possibility I'm thinking. These are among the many qualities I've inherited from my father. He also seems often times frustrated and cynical about my mother and I can't help wondering, if the world and situation would've been different for him, would he have chosen a different companion. I love my father even after all the anger I felt towards him in my teenage years, because he raised me to have high moral standards and I'm proud of what he made me become, and even several years of porn addiction can't take that away. But nevertheless, that sort of question on companionship I will never dare to ask him.

I don't expect anyone else to solve this problem and that's the hard part, the decision of whether or not to commit into this particular relationship is mine and mine alone. There will be uncertainty for whatever decision I end up with, and I sort of have to turn a blind eye to that uncertainty when I decide on this. It does feel good to let go some steam on one the most personal questions in my life even anonymously, but a lot of work still remains to be done. I also want to see simply what spending the summer separately does to us. It may sound weird that it would bring us closer to each other, but if my hypothesis, that letting "new beginnings" mentality pass will make things better in the start of fall, it's one argument for it.

So once again proving that just getting started is often times the hard part. I started with an empty mind and then poured a wall of text onto this post when I just started to process the things on my mind now. I understand that this is probably not very useful thing for others to read and doesn't have that much to do with PMO but hey, my thread my rules (to certain extend), I suppose.

See you tomorrow
Dantes
Hey man, just want to encourage you to keep working hard to keep your life busy and productive in this time apart from your GF. I feel like I can relate to the way you are describing your personality. I’m somewhat the same. I do wanna say, i think it’s easy to take for granted the relationships you have when you have them, especially after the initial first few months. I also know that Love is a choice you have to make. A choice to care for, encourage, commit, compromise, enjoy and so many other things in life together with someone, there’s a big difference between being infatuated with somebody initially and loving somebody. So many people think that infatuation is love and then when that wears off after a year or so then they start to doubt their “love” because it’s not quite as new and exciting as it used to be. That’s why I say it’s a choice, it’s you choosing to be there for her, love her, you choosing to sacrifice yourself for her and make her life better because you care for her and because she does that for you. It’s a two way street that involves constant work. But it’s fulfilling I believe, and purposeful to give your life to someone and take care of them and be there for them, to have someone who cares for you and relies on you because she trusts you will be there. Don’t give up on that opportunity, don’t give up on the purpose that you can gain in your life and the satisfaction that comes from caring for someone. This is all coming from someone who is single unfortunately, but it’s coming from hindsight’s of the relationship I had, failed at, and so badly want back. It was a year and a half, and I gave up after the initial infatuation period was over, now all I can think about is how much I miss having the purpose of being there for someone. So I know it’s hard, but I’d encourage you to try and genuinely think of what it would be like and how you’d feel without her, what things would be different, also, how it would effect her and make her feel. Also, think about the fact that you’ve had struggles with PMO for your whole relationship, and you are just starting to get control of that addiction, what if the more you gain back your control and no longer are dealing with addiction your relationship with her gets better as a result. You’ve never known your gf under your completely rebooted self. Just my thoughts.
 

Dantes

Active Member
I'm very grateful for your response, and I think you touched something that I've also been thinking but didn't mention in my post when you talked about love being a choice. These things are exactly why I want to wait and see if I can find that purpose in loving her, should this major obstacle pass. I'm sure to come back to your post again after I've first sought some clarity for this issue. I also really hope you find what you're searching for and find some satisfaction in your life during that process. Makes me wonder if the grass really is greener on the other side.

Day 68

Playing with fire today, as I started a fast since yesterday evening. I used to do fasts for a couple of days in the last year, and I almost always ended up PMOing as an excuse to easen up the cravings for food. Therefore I wasn't surprised at all when the urges hit this afternoon hard as ever, and I was on the verge of giving in. But somehow managed to avoid PMO and then went for a walk which cleared my mind a bit. I really shouldn't rely too much on momentary willpower. But I also stand to gain some confidence and clarity when I'll make it through this new test of discipline.

See you tomorrow
Dantes
 

Dantes

Active Member
Day 69

So a bit easier day than yesterday. Ketosis has kicked in and cravings for food have almost diminished. Perhaps fasting has also reduced my T levels because I had little to no urges today. Happy to break the spell of PMOing while fasting finally. On the downside, I'm not feeling very productive at all. I can manage very well at work, but I still haven't gotten used to working (studying etc) home during a fast. But that is something I can live with right now, and maybe will try to fix upon fasts in the future.

See you tomorrow
Dantes
 

Dantes

Active Member
Day 70

Third day of fast, and this is my longest fast so far. Just broke the fast and currently feeling good. Not much more to report, busy working day and tennis afterwards with surprisingly good energy levels.

See you tomorrow
Dantes
 

Dantes

Active Member
Day 71

Pretty basic day after all, was happy and energetic at work today, after that chilled a bit too much and then some exercise to finish up this evening. Not anything too noteworthy to add today.

See you tomorrow
Dantes
 

Dantes

Active Member
Day 72 & 73

Travelled to see my gf for the weekend bascially hiking and relaxing for the weekend, no particular challenge pmo-wise as I'm with other people all the time.

See you tomorrow
Dantes
 

Dantes

Active Member
Day 74

Travelling back home from what was a very refreshing weekend full of hiking, sunahinw and nature. Next week’s plan is to establish new determination in my process.

See you tomorrow
Dantes
 

Redalc

Active Member
Day 74

Travelling back home from what was a very refreshing weekend full of hiking, sunahinw and nature. Next week’s plan is to establish new determination in my process.

See you tomorrow
Dantes
Keep it up man. Excited for you as I see your days increasing!
 
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